Reading with Style discussion
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FA 2014 RwS Completed Tasks - Fall 2014
20.10 Higher EducationDecisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
+20 Task (UAB)
+10 Not-a-Novel
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 295
20.9 War BabiesThe Door to December by Dean Koontz
+20 Task (author born 1945)
+5 Jumbo (528 pages in MPE)
+5 Oldies (first published 1985)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 325
20.9 War BabiesComa by Robin Cook
+20 Task (author born 1940)
+5 Combo (10.5)
+5 Oldies (first published 1977)
Post Total: 30
Season Total: 355
20.8 Middle EastSilent House by Orhan Pamuk
+20 Task (set in Turkey)
+5 Oldies (first published 1983)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 380
10.8 Comfort ReadOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
I work with teachers on writing instruction, and whenever I seek out great quotes on writing, I’m inundated by Stephen King quotes. I’m always tempted to just fill Power Points with quotes from this book, and so I finally decided to give in and read the entire book. Amazing – so glad I did! I was initially intrigued but not completely drawn in by the first chunk of the book, about Stephen King’s life, but then once he moved into tips and strategies for writers, I couldn’t put it down. For anyone who wants to write, and for anyone who simply wants to read with a greater sense of author’s craft and purpose, I would highly recommend this book.
+10 task (previously rated Joyland 5 stars)
+10 not-a-novel (memoir)
+10 review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 355
10.8 Comfort ReadThe Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen
The Absent One is the second in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit, but was even more intrigued to see how he developed the central characters further, and built a complex and utterly unique plot. In this installment of the series, we meet a truly evil clique of students who attended the same prep school. Three are now wildly financially successful, and still deeply evil. One is dead. One is in jail. The last one, the absent one, is a mystery that unravels throughout the novel. Adler-Olsen shows off his skill set in crafting complex plots with multiple time frames, to great effect.
+10 task (previously rated The Keeper of Lost Causes 5 stars)
+10 review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 375
10.8 Comfort ReadThe Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen
As I’ve binged on Jussi Adler-Olsen novels recently (great audiobooks, several long drives to Connecticut!) I’ve begun to think about some of the patterns in his writing that make me like this series. First, the dry sense of humor. One line that struck me from this book: “A couple of investigators now shifted uneasily on their chairs. Maybe it was a sign that something was beginning to dawn. On the other hand, it could just be hemorrhoids. Bloody public servants, you could never tell.” Second, I’m continually impressed at how Adler-Olsen is able to develop his story across multiple times and perspectives without losing any of the pacing or structure. His plotting in general is extraordinary. Without spoiling anything, in this book in particular there was a twist at the end that left me audibly gasping.
+10 task (previously rated The Keeper of Lost Causes 5 stars)
+5 combo (10.4 - vengeance)
+5 jumbo (500 pages in MPE in English)
+10 review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 405
10.8 Comfort ReadA Conspiracy of Faith by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Jussi Adler-Olsen develops a fascinating character in this installment of the Department Q series – a kidnapper who chooses a very particular kind of victim. Initially, you’re led to be quite impressed by the kidnapper’s attention to detail and planning (despite, of course, disapproving of the ends to which this planning is put!) but then you start to realize that his choices are not only motivated by the desire to get away with the crime but also by longstanding family issues. There’s a lot to the story, and although you know who the criminal is early on, you don’t know how Carl and his team will possibly resolve the situation.
+10 task (previously rated The Keeper of Lost Causes 5 stars)
+5 combo (10.4 - conspiracy)
+5 jumbo (504 pages in MPE in English)
+10 review
Task Total: 30
Grand Total: 435
20.6 — UnderratedConscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education by Neil Postman
Review:
“Conscientious Objections” is a series of eighteen of Postman's essays and speeches, most concerned with his perennial topics of education, language, technology, and media. They’re from the late 1980s, so some of them are rather dated, but many of them are still strikingly relevant today. (It’s also rather scary to see how scarily accurate his predictions were of what would happen to European society and culture if everyone blindly followed the US’s example with commercial television — from a time when only 20% of adults watched evening TV, vs 75% in the US).
The piece I found most thought-provoking was “The Educationist as Painkiller” in which he proposes that just as the medical profession largely concerns itself with relieving us of sickness (and it’s difficult to get them to agree on what “health” itself even is, beyond the absence of sickness), so education should abandon its vague, arrogant, and ultimately futile attempts to make children intelligent, but instead work much harder simply on helping them avoid stupidity and error. Everyone makes errors. We are often most stupid when we think we’re not. Being stupid is not something we are — it’s something we do — and it’s reducible. And it’s like sickness, in that some of it we produce ourselves, and some of it is something that is inflicted upon us from others, and from which we need protection. So teachers and other educationists should become experts in stupidity, and able to prescribe procedures for avoiding it. He notes, almost in passing, that he has been able to isolate thirty-two different varieties of stupid-talk. Some of these (“either-or thinking; overgeneralization; inability to distinguish between facts and inferences; and reification, a disturbingly prevalent tendency to confuse words with things”) he lists here, but now I’m very curious as to whether he ever published his entire list somewhere.
He also muses (in a world before ebooks) on what the world might be like if a major paper shortage constrained authors to only being able to publish books with fewer than 50 pages — and then proceeds to distill his two previous books (The Disappearance of Childhood and Amusing Ourselves to Death) into versions of about 15 pages each.
Highly recommended all round: ★★★★
+20 task: (177 ratings)
+5 combo [10.4 9, 10, 11 (Objections/Technology/Education)]
+5 oldies (1988)
+10 not-a-novel
+10 review
Task total: 50
Grand total: 2230
Kate S wrote: "From Post 671Karen Michele wrote: "20.10 - Higher Education - Liz M's Task:
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by [author:Malala Yousafz..."
OK, got it subtracted.
10.4 Insanity by Cameron Jace
note: subtitle is Mad in Wonderland on the actual book title on Amazon
+10 task
task total: 10
grand total: 1710
20.9 War BabiesThe Polish Officer by Alan Furst
The more I read, the more I learn. I had often heard of the French Resistance of WWII, but somehow that there was a Polish Resistance escaped me. Following up on my reading of The Polish Officer, I now learn that the Polish Resistance was the largest of such organizations during this war.
Alan Furst, who says he writes “near history”, gives us Alexander de Milja as the means by which we see the activities of the Polish Resistance from the time of Germany occupying Warsaw to mid-1941. While there is plenty of action, I think it is more literary than other spy/thrillers I have read - almost, but perhaps not quite, literature. Captain de Milja becomes real on the page. Furst has researched his period of “near history” thoroughly, so that I googled to see if this minor character of the Resistance was a real-life character. No, but could have been it seemed.
My understanding is that all of the books in the Night Soldiers series are stand alone and can be read in any order. Apparently there are characters that appear in more than one volume. I will read them in order – because I can – but not because I think I will remember one character from one book to the next. I won’t, primarily because I won’t read them close enough to each other for that. But I am taken enough with them that I hope to find time for them all.
+20 Task (b. 1943)
+10 Review
Task Total = 30
Grand Total = 575
Eleanor wrote: "20.3 - Thieves and Mysteries Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung
...Thanks Rosemary for the book idea ;-) "
You're welcome, Eleanor! Hope you enjoyed it! :-)
20.6 - Underrated: The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino
I am fascinated by myth and the cross cultural similarities and differences in creation mythology. I find these myths both intriguing and unifying when I consider connections among the many diverse people in our world. The Goddess Chronicle was no exception as it described the underworld mythology of Izanami and Izanaki and also retold that myth as it related to the island of the sisters, Namima and Kamikuu, who represented the yin and yang, or dark and light, sides of the original myth. I was most entranced by the first third of the book when their story began. For a bit in the middle as the story of Izanami and Izanaki is told, I felt the style became too dry and academic, but it picked up again soon after. Many reviewers that have read other work by Kirino have mentioned that this may be due to the translation, not the original writing. This has convinced me to try some of her better known works as this was my first introduction to Kirino. I recommend this and the other Canongate Myths to anyone who has an interest in retellings of worldwide mythology.
+20 Task: Published 2008, 569 ratings
+10 Combo: 10.4 - 9, 10, 11 (chronicle) / 10.9 - Mythological (canongate myth series)
+10 Review
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 2110
10.9 — MythologicalD'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire (1070 lexile)
Review:
I suspect I'd have loved this when I was ten, but reading it now was quite tough going at times. The stories are simultaneously too simple and too complex — they've been simplified for children (and in some cases bowdlerised), but are written in quite a clunky, clumsy style. Most of the stories are familiar to me, although there were a few that I don't remember ever coming across before, like that of Actaeon, turned into a stag for happening to see Artemis bathing; or of Argus, with his hundred eyes, being literally bored to death by Hermes. I was also rather surprised by the tale of King Midas: only a few lines of it were about his turning-everything-to-gold escapades; with the next few pages given over to a spat with Apollo, which resulted in Midas living the rest of his days with ass's ears!
Some of the illustrations are excellent, but the text only gets ★★ from me.
+10 task
+5 combo [10.4 9, 10, 11 (D'Aulaires)]
+5 oldies [1962]
+10 not-a-novel
+10 review
Task Total: 40
Grand Total: 2270
10.7 Honored AuthorsThe Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie
Review:
Hercule Poirot has reached the stage in his life and career where he can only take up cases that he finds particularly appealing. In a conversation with a more classically-minded friend, he realises that he knows next to nothing about his great Greek hero after whom he was named. A little reading later, he finds himself unimpressed. Hercules was little more than a brute — a creature of great muscle, but little intelligence. However, the seed of an idea has been sown. Poirot will engage upon his own modern Labour of Hercules — twelve cases in twelve months, each carefully selected with special reference to the ancient Labours — after which he can retire.
And so we get twelve short stories, each but the final one originally published separately in Strand Magazine. Each connects to the original Herculean task in a different manner — often quite cleverly, though occasionally in a little too coincidental a manner (a Rubens painting of The Girdle of Hyppolita just happens to be stolen at exactly the time, for example), and the solution to the case often reflects the original tale too, though I don't know the originals well enough myself to know if a familiarity with them would make the twists much more obvious in advance.
Some of the tales, particularly the earlier ones, are a little too convoluted, with as many twists, turns, red-herrings, and double-crosses as Christie's full-length novels. Then, as if overcompensating for this, some of the later ones are a little too simple. But in general they stand well alone (“The Augean Stables” was my personal favourite), and fit together excellently as a coherent whole — though I was expecting something more at the end to top it all off. ★★★★
+10 task: [The Agatha Award]
+5 combo [10.9 Mythological]
+5 oldies (1947)
+10 not-a-novel
+10 review
Task total: 40
RwS Finish: 100
Mega Finish: 200
Grand total: 2610
10.8 - Comfort Read Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente, no lexile but not at BPL
I really enjoyed reading this rough and tumble retelling of Snow White in the wild west. It is cleverly told, the connections make sense in the setting, and the backstory of how Snow White gets her name brings in the poor treatment she receives for her mixed racial heritage, giving the work more even more relevance and connection for the reader. The story has plenty of grit and definitely visits the dark side of the original story of Snow White. It holds up well as a good tale in its own right, but the way Valente masterfully weaves in the retelling to match her creative western setting makes it an accomplished achievement. I’d recommend it to all who enjoy westerns and/or retellings.
+10 Task: I rated Silently and Very Fast 5 stars in August, 2012
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 2130
20.3 — Thieves & Mysteries:The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block (#127 on the list of thieves)
Review:
Am I lucky that almost all the Bernie Rhodenbarr books fit a 20-point category or what? I can just keep reading them, having fun and earning points at the same time!
This one was just as excellent as the previous ones, if not even better. I thought that the dialogue between Bernie and Carolyn, the novel's main female character, was just hilarious. It was also a welcome break that Bernie didn't have a new love interest in this one, as Carolyn was exclusively interested in women.
The plot: Bernie, our friendly neighbourhood burglar, who is always at the wrong place at the wrong time, has a new profession. He's bought a bookstore and is dealing in old books now. He claims to have given up stealing. But then a man approaches him, knowing about his past, and offers him lots of money if Bernie would break into a rich man's house and steal a valuable book. And not just any book - an only copy of an unknown poem by Rudyard Kipling, which is almost priceless! Bernie can't just let this chance by and does get the book. But when he's delivering the catch to an assistant of the client, he's drugged and wakes up with a gun in his hand and the assistant dead next to him. And the book is gone. Bernie is once again wanted for a murder that he did not commit, and the only way to avoid going to jail is to figure out what happened and who the real killer is. While doing that, he also gets some more information about "The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow," the book he stole.
Very quick and fun read and highly entertaining.
+20 task
+5 oldies (first published 1979)
+10 review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 310
20.9 - War BabiesThe Pure Gold Baby (Margaret Drabble was born in 1939)
Review: This is the first Margaret Drabble I've read; I won The Pure Gold Baby in a Goodreads giveaway last month. I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't know anything about Drabble before I received this book, and I was surprised to learn that she is the sister of A.S. Byatt, author of one of my favorite novels, Possession. There are many similarities in terms of style, but where Byatt engaged me heart, mind, and soul with her writing, Drabble left me somewhat cold.
This novel is centered on a single mother named Jess and her "pure gold baby" named Anna. We never learn what, exactly, is wrong with Anna, just that she is developmentally delayed and a sweet, kind, "good as gold" person. Jess's story is told by one of her close female friends, who inserts her own story and opinions into the narrative. This could have worked, but instead it left me feeling distanced and removed from all of the characters in the novel. The writing itself is technically very good, but the emotion (the heart) was missing for me.
Also (unfairly) when I read the description of this book and learned it was about a woman (Jess) who was an anthropologist in the 60's, I immediately began comparing it to The People in the Trees, which was one of the best books I read this year. Although Jess's career factors into the novel pretty heavily, the reader doesn't get to really "go" there with her - most of the anthropological discussions are academic and removed from the actual times and places.
I gave this book three stars because the writing is technically superb, but I would give it two stars for the emotional impact it had on me as a reader.
+20 task
+10 review
Task total: 30
Grand total: 265
20.6 UnderratedThe Wife and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
This has been on my Currently Reading shelf for 6 weeks, but, trust me, that isn’t because I didn’t care for it. I read a story (or two) and then read a novel, and then read a story, and then read a novel.
Chekhov is full of irony, but not twist endings. The stories are largely characterizations devoid of action. Each choice we make in life has a cost. In A Dreary Story, perhaps the longest of the stories, a man has worked hard in his profession and become quite respected in the larger world. But what of his family life?
I have a feeling as though I had once lived at home with a real wife and children and that now I am dining with visitors, in the house of a sham wife who is not the real one, am looking at a Liza who is not the real Liza. A startling change has taken place in both of them; I have missed the long process by which that change was effected, and it is no wonder that I can make nothing of it.One story involved a man who spent his life in town, saving and scrimping so that he could buy a farm and have gooseberry bushes. Will the gooseberries be sweet?
I do enjoy reading short stories, but perhaps I got my fill of them this fall for the time being.
+20 Task (139 ratings)
+ 5 Combo (20.4)
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
+10 Oldies (pub 1898)
Task Total = 55
Grand Total = 630
10.8 - Comfort Read (rated The French Lieutenant's Woman five stars in December 2013)The Collector by John Fowles
I've loved John Fowles since reading The French Lieutenant's Woman for a Neo-Victorian Lit class in college, and this book has been on my to read list for a long time. I just took a quick trip from NC to OR, and this book turned out to be a perfect airplane read. Please don't take that to mean that this book is light or easy in any way - it's easily one of the creepiest novels I've ever read - but that it's captivating in a way that I could block out the screaming children and the long hours and fully get absorbed by the story.
As a big fan of Fowles work, this didn't disappoint. I give it four stars rather than five only because I found the amount of artist references in the book was a distraction (I think that most readers don't know enough about painters and artists to "get" what Fowles is doing here, and it comes across as pretentious at times). I highly recommend this for fans of psychological fiction/thrillers.
+10 task
+10 review
+10 combo (10.2 - Halloween, 10.4 - 9, 10, 11)
+5 oldies (published in 1963)
task total: 35
grand total: 300
10.9 MythologicalThree Soulsby Janie Chang
Approved in help task and website
http://www.janiechang.com/the_family_...
Review
I really enjoyed this book. I liked the character of Leiyin. I think she was ahead of her time and quite the modern woman. She wanted and education and knew it was important. She was ambitious but I think it came to bite her in the butt. If she was smart, she would have asked the advice of her stepmother.
Instead, she runs away and gets caught. Then she is married off to Beizhen. It turns out, he is kind to her and does love her. She doesn't know what a good thing she had until it was too late.
I also liked her sister Sueyin. She seemed to know how to work the system. Unfortunately, Sueyin's family disowned her. I liked Little Ming and Lei yin's daughter Weiland.
What I didn't like was how Leiyin treated Little Ming after she found out Little Ming had a fling with Hanchin. She kicked her out and I thought Leiyin was being a hypocrite. Overall, I liked the book.
Task +10
Style +10
Book Total: 20
Grand Total : 145
20.7 Make it StrangeInvisible Cities by Italo Calvino
+20 Task
+10 Combo (10.4: Invisible; 20.10: UT Austin)
+5 Oldies (1972)
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 415
20.6 UnderratedThe Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
+20 Task (24 ratings, pub 1995)
+5 Combo (10.4)
+10 Not a Novel (short stories)
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 450
20.5 PoliticsShall We Tell the President? by Jeffrey Archer
+20 Task (wiki list)
+5 Oldies (1977)
+10 Combo (10.4: President; 20.9: 1940)
Post Total: 35
Season Total: 485
20.4 RealismThe Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
+20 Task
+10 Combo (20.3: #32 Victorian List; 20.1: 39 users shelved)
+10 Oldies (1870)
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 525
20.3 Thieves & MysteriesThe Hunter by Richard Stark
+20 Task (#111 on thieves list)
+5 Oldies (1962)
Post Total: 25
Season Total: 550
Task 10.8 - Comfort Reads –In 2010 I gave 5 * to:
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night (1601) by William Shakespeare
Review: I read this the afternoon before my family and I went to
Shakespeare Tavern to see it performed. The actors speak the original Elizabethan English so reading the play in 21st Century American English beforehand helps me to understand what is happening onstage. Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s comedies. That means: nobody dies, and the plot is full of mistaken identities. I was surprised at the rough treatment the prissy “Puritan” character Malvolio received in the play. Drunkenness is played for laughs. There are several songs, sang by the wise and funny Fool employed by the aristocratic woman. And, as usual, the physical comedy has to be seen to be appreciated. Recommended for fans of Shakespeare.
+10 Task
+25 Oldies -400+ years old: (1613 and older).
+10 Not-a-Novel: short story collections, non-fiction, plays, and poetry collections.
+10 Review
Task Total: 10 + 25 + 10 + 10 = 55
Grand Total: 1015 + 55 = 1070
20.6 - Underrated: Orphans of Eldorado by Milton Hatoum
Orphans of Eldorado was an interesting retelling of the myth, but it didn’t pull me in the way other books in the Canongate myth series have. I had to re-read at the beginning to get into the writing style. This could well be because of the translation, but I felt confused and didn’t feel a strong story that connected me directly to the myth until much later in the book. I also didn’t get the sense that the main character was on a quest or driven to discover Eldorado. He seemed to be just trying to survive his circumstances. It was still a good story and flowed along well enough once I got the gist of it, but it fell short of the standard set by some of the other writers in the myths series.
+20 Task: Published 2008, 111 ratings
+ 5 Combo:10.9 - Mythological (canongate myth series)
+10 Review
Task Total: 35
Grand Total: 2165
Post 777 Heather wrote: "10.4 Insanity by Cameron Jace
note: subtitle is Mad in Wonderland on the actual book title on Amazon
+10 task
task total: 10
grand total: 1710"
I'm sorry, Heather, "Mad in Wonderland" is the series title and not part of the book title. This does not qualify for 10.4.
Post 784 Karen Michele wrote: "10.8 - Comfort Read Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente, no lexile but not at BPL
I really enjoyed reading this rough and tumble retelling of Snow White i..."
+5 Combo 20.6 Underrated (795 ratings)
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Post 784 Karen Michele wrote: "10.8 - Comfort Read Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente, no lexile but not at BPL
I really enjoyed reading this rough and t..."
Thanks, Elizabeth, but the pub date that comes up for me is 2013, so I don't think it counts.
Karen Michele wrote: "Thanks, Elizabeth, but the pub date that comes up for me is 2013, so I don't think it counts. "Ha! Only 2 weeks left in the season and that's still tripping me up. ;-(
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Karen Michele wrote: "Thanks, Elizabeth, but the pub date that comes up for me is 2013, so I don't think it counts. "Ha! Only 2 weeks left in the season and that's still tripping me up. ;-("
I've done pretty well this season, but last season I always forgot to add the multiple one even though I loved it!
15.5 BtW Constant travellerThe Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett, 1929/30
+15 task
+15 bonus
Task total 30
Grand total 615
15.6 BtW Constant travellerThe Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen, 1931/32
+15 task
+15 bonus
Task total 30
Grand total 645
15.7 BtW Constant travellerA Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh, 1933/34
+15 task
+ 15 bonus
Task total 30
Grand total 675
15.8 BtW Constant travellerThe Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner, 1935/36
+15 task
+15 bonus
Task total 30
Grand total 705
20.6 Underrated: 1 ratingGrowing in Newness of Life: Christian Initiation in Anglicanism Today by David R. Holeton
Review: This collection of papers from the 1991 Toronto Conference offers great thinking on all-things baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, and catechumenate. Sadly, many of the Conference recommendations have not - nearly 25 years since the meeting - been implemented in many parts of the Anglican communion, including my own (e.g., the practice of “indiscriminate” baptism and the inherent contradiction therein). I was particularly interested in the paper presented by John W. B. Hill who I had the opportunity to hear at this summer’s North American Association for the Catechumenate annual conference in Vancouver. I am looking forward to researching and reading responses to many of these papers.
Task + 20
Non-Fiction + 10
Review +10
Combo + 5 (10.4 - 10 letters in 'initiation')\
Book Total: 45
Grand Total: 160+ 45 = 205
10.2 Halloween The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
+10 pts - Task
+ 5 pts - Combo (20.9 b. 1942)
+ 5 pts - Oldies (1983)
Task Total - 20 pts
Grand Total - 310 pts
20.2 Phineas FinnThe Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien (Ireland)
+20 pts - Book
+10 pts - Combo (10.4, 20.7)
Task Total - 30 pts
GRand Total - 340 pts
20.10 Higher EducationMountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
+20 pts - Task
+15 pts - Combo (10.4, 10.5, 20.9 (b. 1945)
+10 pts - Not a Novel
Task total - 45 pts
Grand Total - 385 pts
20.5 - PoliticsBorstal Boy by Brendan Behan
In 1939, 16-year-old Brendan Behan, a member of the youth branch of the IRA, was arrested in Liverpool for possessing explosives. He says nothing about his intentions and little about his trial, but there'd been some deadly bombs planted in English cities and he was presumably planning to do the same. As he was under 17, the maximum sentence he could be given was 3 years in a Borstal, the name at the time for young offenders' institutions, and he tells the story of that time in this book, published nearly 20 years later.
The book could be split into 3 parts: his time on remand awaiting trial in the youth wing of an adult prison, where life is violent; his time in a central Borstal awaiting placement; and his time in the open Borstal that he was eventually sent to - which covered most of his sentence in fact, but only about a third of the book. More ...
+20 task (on the list of Political Novels - although in fact it's not a novel)
+ 5 combo (20.2 born Ireland)
+10 review
+10 not a novel (memoir)
+ 5 oldies (1958)
Task total: 50
Grand Total: 1045 points
10.3 - Leif EriksonThe Indian Bride by Karin Fossum
Most of the time when I read a traditionally structured mystery, I am totally surprised by who the actual killer is in the end. In Karin Fossum’s books that has held true until The Indian Bride. This time I wasn’t surprised by who did it, but I’m not going to tell you any more about it than that! I will say that the book was different from the typical Scandinavian mystery that I have come to love in the last few years, but still had the characteristics that I love. Fossum is one of my favorites in the genre. Her writing draws me in immediately and I enjoy her attention to the setting and character details of the story. This one is going to stay with me for awhile!
+10 Task: author from Norway
+10 Review
Task Total: 20
Grand Total: 2185
20.1 19th CenturyDie Jagd nach dem Schnatz by Lewis Carroll
(this is the edition I read: English + German translation + epilogue = 110 pages)
The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll (the most popular edition)
Review:
The Hunting of the Snark is an agony in eight fits, according to Lewis Carroll. For me it was a delight packed into 141 stanzas, which could read even twice, because I read the German translation after the English original. Sometimes, even reading the English version again to compare it properly with the translation. It was interesting to see the difficulties in translating poems, because the translation should be close to the original, but still rhyming. Oliver Sturm, who did the translation and the German epilogue, did a wonderful job, I might add. The epilogue gave information about Lewis Carroll and interesting backgrounds about his life and some of his work. A brilliant bilingual read!
+20 Task (16 times)
+10 review
+10 oldies (1876)
+10 not-a-novel (poetry + non-fiction)
Task Total: 50
Grand Total: 140
From Post 778Norma wrote: "20.6 Underrated
Hanging by a Thread by Monica Ferris
+20 task
Task total: 20
Grand total: 350"
+5 Combo 20.9
From Post 795Deedee wrote: "Task 10.8 - Comfort Reads –
In 2010 I gave 5 * to:
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night (1601) by William Shakespeare
Review: I..."
+5 Combo 20.4
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Reading with Style
Books mentioned in this topic
Quantum Leap: Obsessions (other topics)The Secret Place (other topics)
Dracula (other topics)
The Trial of Andrew Johnson (other topics)
Stranger Things Happen (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Carol Davis (other topics)Tana French (other topics)
Bram Stoker (other topics)
Noel B. Gerson (other topics)
Noel B. Gerson (other topics)
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
+20 Task (UPenn)
+10 Combo 10.4, 10.5
+10 Not a Novel
Post Total: 40
Season Total: 265